Hammer and Nail

Depending on how you look at it, my Novel of Life has either degenerated into a regular blog or assumed its true colors for the moment. Quite frankly I can't see myself writing any more chapters for the Spain story any time soon. But conventional wisdom has proven to me that usually when I declare my intentions to stop writing, the very opposite occurs and I'm suddenly enthralled by visions.

Last night fiction blogger Seth K. came over to my father's Loop condo in Chicago. I'm convalescing here after a major surgery to my arm. Seth and I began fiction blogging about eight months ago and I've been following his work ever since. I wrote a review for his online novel and he said he wanted to meet me, so I set it up. You don't usually meet your online acquaintances and so this provided for an interesting experience.

Seth is much like I thought he would be like; except more so. Having read his novel, I knew that he had close contact with corporate culture and fashion. The Tom Drake Experience has a fascination with labels: clothing labels, alcohol labels, job labels. But the novel wants us to see beyond this glamorization and hyper-capitalism. In person, Seth seemed intelligent, frank, and with great ambitions to become a full time writer. We shared our goals and aspirations.

I told him that I quit my job working front desk at the Hampton Inn, and that I'll launch my web marketing consulting company as soon as my shoulder heals. As you can see, I'm already typing. In fact, I've put up a presentation of my consulting services on LinkedIn and I am already talking to several prospective clients. If you are looking to expand your business on the Internet, please contact me at escapeintolife (at) yahoo.com. Okay that was a shameless plug, but you're allowed to do that on your own blog.

Having taken it upon myself to promote others and learn the tricks of the marketing trade, I naturally want to incorporate this knowledge into my own sites. Currently I am running six blogs, a literary arts webzine, and an online comic book. If that sounds like a lot, I'm also writing a literary biography of Richard Stern, the celebrated Chicago novelist.

Most important however is that I dedicate myself to web marketing. Now it's become my regular routine to comb through classifieds on Craigslist. You would be surprised at how many computer and writing "gigs" there are in the major cities. I could dedicate my whole day to responding to these jobs. If I'm not taken up by a client in the next week, I plan to do a couple "writing/editing" gigs which generally pay $10 an hour.

So there you have it. I've cut myself free from the traditional job market and am courageously exploring the many Internet-rich avenues available to us now in 2009. According to a New York Times article, SEO marketing is one of the hottest jobs on the market. I feel as though I'm re-positioning myself for a sea-change in employment and business practices that will soon arrive and transform our old, battered economy if that has not happened already. Virtual companies are sprouting up everywhere. Web marketing is an essential part of any growing business. There will be a need for online shamans and social media gurus to travel between the corporate world of widgets and the blogosphere of conversations. Working as a web marketing consultant and a freelance writer just may give me the satisfaction of personal freedom.

Because I always like to point my readers to cool sites, here are a couple I found. I've mentioned before that I like to listen to music off the net. Eight tracks is a site where you can upload your favorite mixes and listen to free mp3 mixes. Also here are some wicked art sites: Silk Werzinger, Creative Time, and Audrey Kawasaki.

Cheers and don't forget to Stumble me!